nomogram
Draw a Nomogram Representing a Regression Fit
Draws a partial nomogram that can be used to manually obtain predicted
values from a regression model that was fitted with rms
.
The nomogram does not have lines representing sums, but it has a reference
line for reading scoring points (default range 0--100). Once the reader
manually totals the points, the predicted values can be read at the bottom.
Non-monotonic transformations of continuous variables are handled (scales
wrap around), as
are transformations which have flat sections (tick marks are labeled
with ranges). If interactions are in the model, one variable
is picked as the “axis variable”, and separate axes are constructed for
each level of the interacting factors (preference is given automatically
to using any discrete factors to construct separate axes) and
levels of factors which are indirectly related to interacting
factors (see DETAILS). Thus the nomogram is designed so that only
one axis is actually read for each variable, since the variable
combinations are disjoint. For
categorical interacting factors, the default is to construct axes for
all levels.
The user may specify
coordinates of each predictor to label on its axis, or use default values.
If a factor interacts with other factors, settings for one or more of
the interacting factors may be specified separately (this is mandatory
for continuous variables). Optional confidence intervals will be
drawn for individual scores as well as for the linear predictor.
If more than one confidence level is chosen, multiple levels may be
displayed using different colors or gray scales. Functions of the
linear predictors may be added to the nomogram.
The datadist
object that was in effect when the model
was fit is used to specify the limits of the axis for continuous
predictors when the user does not specify tick mark locations in the
nomogram
call.
print.nomogram
prints axis information stored in an object returned
by nomogram
. This is useful in producing tables of point assignments
by levels of predictors. It also prints how many linear predictor
units there are per point and the number of points per unit change in
the linear predictor.
legend.nomabbrev
draws legends describing abbreviations used for
labeling tick marks for levels of categorical predictors.
- Keywords
- models, hplot, regression
Usage
nomogram(fit, ..., adj.to, lp=TRUE, lp.at=NULL,
fun=NULL, fun.at=NULL, fun.lp.at=NULL, funlabel="Predicted Value",
interact=NULL, kint=NULL, conf.int=FALSE,
conf.lp=c("representative", "all", "none"),
est.all=TRUE, abbrev=FALSE, minlength=4, maxscale=100, nint=10,
vnames=c("labels","names"),
varname.label=TRUE, varname.label.sep="=",
omit=NULL, verbose=FALSE)# S3 method for nomogram
print(x, dec=0, …)
# S3 method for nomogram
plot(x, lplabel="Linear Predictor", fun.side,
col.conf=c(1, 0.3),
conf.space=c(.08,.2), label.every=1, force.label=FALSE,
xfrac=.35, cex.axis=.85, cex.var=1, col.grid=NULL,
varname.label=TRUE, varname.label.sep="=", ia.space=.7,
tck=NA, tcl=-0.25, lmgp=.4, naxes,
points.label='Points', total.points.label='Total Points',
total.sep.page=FALSE, total.fun, cap.labels=FALSE, ...)
legend.nomabbrev(object, which, x, y, ncol=3, …)
Arguments
- fit
a regression model fit that was created with
rms
, and (usually) withoptions(datadist = "object.name")
in effect.- …
settings of variables to use in constructing axes. If
datadist
was in effect, the default is to usepretty(total range, nint)
for continuous variables, and the class levels for discrete ones. Forlegend.nomabbrev
,…
specifies optional parameters to pass tolegend
. Common ones arebty = "n"
to suppress drawing the box. You may want to specify a non-proportionally spaced font (e.g., courier) number if abbreviations are more than one letter long. This will make the abbreviation definitions line up (e.g., specifyfont = 2
, the default for courier). Ignored forprint
andplot
.- adj.to
If you didn't define
datadist
for all predictors, you will have to define adjustment settings for the undefined ones, e.g.adj.to= list(age = 50, sex = "female")
.- lp
Set to
FALSE
to suppress creation of an axis for scoring \(X\beta\).- lp.at
If
lp=TRUE
,lp.at
may specify a vector of settings of \(X\beta\). Default is to usepretty(range of linear predictors, nint)
.- fun
an optional function to transform the linear predictors, and to plot on another axis. If more than one transformation is plotted, put them in a list, e.g.
list(function(x) x/2, function(x) 2*x)
. Any function values equal toNA
will be ignored.- fun.at
function values to label on axis. Default
fun
evaluated atlp.at
. If more than onefun
was specified, using a vector forfun.at
will cause all functions to be evaluated at the same argument values. To use different values, specify a list of vectors forfun.at
, with elements corresponding to the different functions (lists of vectors also applies tofun.lp.at
andfun.side
).- fun.lp.at
If you want to evaluate one of the functions at a different set of linear predictor values than may have been used in constructing the linear predictor axis, specify a vector or list of vectors of linear predictor values at which to evaluate the function. This is especially useful for discrete functions. The presence of this attribute also does away with the need for
nomogram
to compute numerical approximations of the inverse of the function. It also allows the user-supplied function to returnfactor
objects, which is useful when e.g. a single tick mark position actually represents a range. If thefun.lp.at
parameter is present, thefun.at
vector for that function is ignored.- funlabel
label for
fun
axis. If more than one function was given but funlabel is of length one, it will be duplicated as needed. Iffun
is a list of functions for which you specified names (see the final example below), these names will be used as labels.- interact
When a continuous variable interacts with a discrete one, axes are constructed so that the continuous variable moves within the axis, and separate axes represent levels of interacting factors. For interactions between two continuous variables, all but the axis variable must have discrete levels defined in
interact
. For discrete interacting factors, you may specify levels to use in constructing the multiple axes. For continuous interacting factors, you must do this. Examples:interact = list(age = seq(10,70,by=10), treat = c("A","B","D"))
.- kint
for models such as the ordinal models with multiple intercepts, specifies which one to use in evaluating the linear predictor. Default is to use
fit$interceptRef
if it exists, or 1.- conf.int
confidence levels to display for each scoring. Default is
FALSE
to display no confidence limits. Settingconf.int
toTRUE
is the same as setting it toc(0.7, 0.9)
, with the line segment between the 0.7 and 0.9 levels shaded using gray scale.- conf.lp
default is
"representative"
to group all linear predictors evaluated into deciles, and to show, for the linear predictor confidence intervals, only the mean linear predictor within the deciles along with the median standard error within the deciles. Setconf.lp = "none"
to suppress confidence limits for the linear predictors, and to"all"
to show all confidence limits.- est.all
To plot axes for only the subset of variables named in
…
, setest.all = FALSE
. Note: This option only works when zero has a special meaning for the variables that are omitted from the graph.- abbrev
Set to
TRUE
to use theabbreviate
function to abbreviate levels of categorical factors, both for labeling tick marks and for axis titles. If you only want to abbreviate certain predictor variables, setabbrev
to a vector of character strings containing their names.- minlength
applies if
abbrev = TRUE
. Is the minimum abbreviation length passed to theabbreviate
function. If you setminlength = 1
, the letters of the alphabet are used to label tick marks for categorical predictors, and all letters are drawn no matter how close together they are. For labeling axes (interaction settings),minlength = 1
causesminlength = 4
to be used.- maxscale
default maximum point score is 100
- nint
number of intervals to label for axes representing continuous variables. See
pretty
.- vnames
By default, variable labels are used to label axes. Set
vnames = "names"
to instead use variable names.- omit
vector of character strings containing names of variables for which to suppress drawing axes. Default is to show all variables.
- verbose
set to
TRUE
to get printed output detailing how tick marks are chosen and labeled for function axes. This is useful in seeing how certain linear predictor values cannot be solved for using inverse linear interpolation on the (requested linear predictor values, function values at these lp values). When this happens you will seeNA
s in the verbose output, and the corresponding tick marks will not appear in the nomogram.- x
an object created by
nomogram
, or the x coordinate for a legend- dec
number of digits to the right of the decimal point, for rounding point scores in
print.nomogram
. Default is to round to the nearest whole number of points.- lplabel
label for linear predictor axis. Default is
"Linear Predictor"
.- fun.side
a vector or list of vectors of
side
parameters for theaxis
function for labeling function values. Values may be 1 to position a tick mark label below the axis (the default), or 3 for above the axis. If for example an axis has 5 tick mark labels and the second and third will run into each other, specifyfun.side=c(1,1,3,1,1)
(assuming only one function is specified asfun
).- col.conf
colors corresponding to
conf.int
.- conf.space
a 2-element vector with the vertical range within which to draw confidence bars, in units of 1=spacing between main bars. Four heights are used within this range (8 for the linear predictor if more than 16 unique values were evaluated), cycling them among separate confidence intervals to reduce overlapping.
- label.every
Specify
label.every = i
to label on everyi
th tick mark.- force.label
set to
TRUE
to force every tick mark intended to be labeled to have a label plotted (whether the labels run into each other or not)- xfrac
fraction of horizontal plot to set aside for axis titles
- cex.axis
character size for tick mark labels
- cex.var
character size for axis titles (variable names)
- col.grid
If left unspecified, no vertical reference lines are drawn. Specify a vector of length one (to use the same color for both minor and major reference lines) or two (corresponding to the color for the major and minor divisions, respectively) containing colors, to cause vertical reference lines to the top points scale to be drawn. For R, a good choice is
col.grid = gray(c(0.8, 0.95))
.- varname.label
In constructing axis titles for interactions, the default is to add
(interacting.varname = level)
on the right. Specifyvarname.label = FALSE
to instead use"(level)"
.- varname.label.sep
If
varname.label = TRUE
, you can change the separator to something other than=
by specifying this parameter.- ia.space
When multiple axes are draw for levels of interacting factors, the default is to group combinations related to a main effect. This is done by spacing the axes for the second to last of these within a group only 0.7 (by default) of the way down as compared with normal space of 1 unit.
- tck
see
tck
underpar
- tcl
length of tick marks in nomogram
- lmgp
spacing between numeric axis labels and axis (see
par
formgp
)- naxes
maximum number of axes to allow on one plot. If the nomogram requires more than one “page”, the “Points” axis will be repeated at the top of each page when necessary.
- points.label
a character string giving the axis label for the points scale
- total.points.label
a character string giving the axis label for the total points scale
- total.sep.page
set to
TRUE
to force the total points and later axes to be placed on a separate page- total.fun
a user-provided function that will be executed before the total points axis is drawn. Default is not to execute a function. This is useful e.g. when
total.sep.page = TRUE
and you wish to uselocator
to find the coordinates for positioning an abbreviation legend before it's too late and a new page is started (i.e.,total.fun = function() print(locator(1))
).- cap.labels
logical: should the factor labels have their first letter capitalized?
- object
the result returned from
nomogram
- which
a character string giving the name of a variable for which to draw a legend with abbreviations of factor levels
- y
y-coordinate to pass to the
legend
function. This is the upper left corner of the legend box. You can omity
ifx
is a list with named elementsx
andy
. To use the mouse to locate the legend, specifylocator(1)
forx
. Forprint
,x
is the result ofnomogram
.- ncol
the number of columns to form in drawing the legend.
Details
A variable is considered to be discrete if it is categorical or ordered
or if datadist
stored values
for it (meaning it
had <11
unique values).
A variable is said to be indirectly related to another variable if
the two are related by some interaction. For example, if a model
has variables a, b, c, d, and the interactions are a:c and c:d,
variable d is indirectly related to variable a. The complete list
of variables related to a is c, d. If an axis is made for variable a,
several axes will actually be drawn, one for each combination of c
and d specified in interact
.
Note that with a caliper, it is easy to continually add point scores for individual predictors, and then to place the caliper on the upper “Points” axis (with extrapolation if needed). Then transfer these points to the “Total Points” axis. In this way, points can be added without writing them down.
Confidence limits for an individual predictor score are really confidence
limits for the entire linear predictor, with other predictors set to
adjustment values. If lp = TRUE
, all confidence bars for all linear
predictor values evaluated are drawn. The extent to which multiple
confidence bars of differing widths appear at the same linear predictor
value means that precision depended on how the linear predictor was
arrived at (e.g., a certain value may be realized from a setting of
a certain predictor that was associated with a large standard error
on the regression coefficients for that predictor).
On occasion, you may want to reverse the regression coefficients of a model
to make the “points” scales reverse direction. For parametric survival
models, which are stated in terms of increasing regression effects meaning
longer survival (the opposite of a Cox model), just do something like
fit$coefficients <- -fit$coefficients
before invoking nomogram
,
and if you add function axes, negate the function
arguments. For the Cox model, you also need to negate fit$center
.
If you omit lp.at
, also negate fit$linear.predictors
.
Value
a list of class "nomogram"
that contains information used in plotting
the axes. If you specified abbrev = TRUE
, a list called abbrev
is also
returned that gives the abbreviations used for tick mark labels, if any.
This list is useful for
making legends and is used by legend.nomabbrev
(see the last example).
The returned list also has components called total.points
, lp
,
and the function axis names. These components have components
x
(at
argument vector given to axis
), y
(pos
for axis
),
and x.real
, the x-coordinates appearing on tick mark labels.
An often useful result is stored in the list of data for each axis variable,
namely the exact number of points that correspond to each tick mark on
that variable's axis.
References
Banks J: Nomograms. Encylopedia of Statistical Sciences, Vol 6. Editors: S Kotz and NL Johnson. New York: Wiley; 1985.
Lubsen J, Pool J, van der Does, E: A practical device for the application of a diagnostic or prognostic function. Meth. Inform. Med. 17:127--129; 1978.
Wikipedia: Nomogram, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomogram.
See Also
rms
, plot.Predict
,
ggplot.Predict
, plot.summary.rms
,
axis
, pretty
, approx
,
latexrms
, rmsMisc
Examples
# NOT RUN {
n <- 1000 # define sample size
set.seed(17) # so can reproduce the results
d <- data.frame(age = rnorm(n, 50, 10),
blood.pressure = rnorm(n, 120, 15),
cholesterol = rnorm(n, 200, 25),
sex = factor(sample(c('female','male'), n,TRUE)))
# Specify population model for log odds that Y=1
# Simulate binary y to have Prob(y=1) = 1/[1+exp(-L)]
d <- upData(d,
L = .4*(sex=='male') + .045*(age-50) +
(log(cholesterol - 10)-5.2)*(-2*(sex=='female') + 2*(sex=='male')),
y = ifelse(runif(n) < plogis(L), 1, 0))
ddist <- datadist(d); options(datadist='ddist')
f <- lrm(y ~ lsp(age,50) + sex * rcs(cholesterol, 4) + blood.pressure,
data=d)
nom <- nomogram(f, fun=function(x)1/(1+exp(-x)), # or fun=plogis
fun.at=c(.001,.01,.05,seq(.1,.9,by=.1),.95,.99,.999),
funlabel="Risk of Death")
#Instead of fun.at, could have specified fun.lp.at=logit of
#sequence above - faster and slightly more accurate
plot(nom, xfrac=.45)
print(nom)
nom <- nomogram(f, age=seq(10,90,by=10))
plot(nom, xfrac=.45)
g <- lrm(y ~ sex + rcs(age, 3) * rcs(cholesterol, 3), data=d)
nom <- nomogram(g, interact=list(age=c(20,40,60)),
conf.int=c(.7,.9,.95))
plot(nom, col.conf=c(1,.5,.2), naxes=7)
w <- upData(d,
cens = 15 * runif(n),
h = .02 * exp(.04 * (age - 50) + .8 * (sex == 'Female')),
d.time = -log(runif(n)) / h,
death = ifelse(d.time <= cens, 1, 0),
d.time = pmin(d.time, cens))
f <- psm(Surv(d.time,death) ~ sex * age, data=w, dist='lognormal')
med <- Quantile(f)
surv <- Survival(f) # This would also work if f was from cph
plot(nomogram(f, fun=function(x) med(lp=x), funlabel="Median Survival Time"))
nom <- nomogram(f, fun=list(function(x) surv(3, x),
function(x) surv(6, x)),
funlabel=c("3-Month Survival Probability",
"6-month Survival Probability"))
plot(nom, xfrac=.7)
# }
# NOT RUN {
nom <- nomogram(fit.with.categorical.predictors, abbrev=TRUE, minlength=1)
nom$x1$points # print points assigned to each level of x1 for its axis
#Add legend for abbreviations for category levels
abb <- attr(nom, 'info')$abbrev$treatment
legend(locator(1), abb$full, pch=paste(abb$abbrev,collapse=''),
ncol=2, bty='n') # this only works for 1-letter abbreviations
#Or use the legend.nomabbrev function:
legend.nomabbrev(nom, 'treatment', locator(1), ncol=2, bty='n')
# }
# NOT RUN {
#Make a nomogram with axes predicting probabilities Y>=j for all j=1-3
#in an ordinal logistic model, where Y=0,1,2,3
w <- upData(w, Y = ifelse(y==0, 0, sample(1:3, length(y), TRUE)))
g <- lrm(Y ~ age+rcs(cholesterol,4) * sex, data=w)
fun2 <- function(x) plogis(x-g$coef[1]+g$coef[2])
fun3 <- function(x) plogis(x-g$coef[1]+g$coef[3])
f <- Newlabels(g, c(age='Age in Years'))
#see Design.Misc, which also has Newlevels to change
#labels for levels of categorical variables
g <- nomogram(f, fun=list('Prob Y>=1'=plogis, 'Prob Y>=2'=fun2,
'Prob Y=3'=fun3),
fun.at=c(.01,.05,seq(.1,.9,by=.1),.95,.99))
plot(g, lmgp=.2, cex.axis=.6)
options(datadist=NULL)
# }